Any affiliates using quickbooks? or paypal users..

[pound]

I've just upgraded from 'Receipts in a Shoebox v2.1' to Quickbooks Regular 2006 I have an accountant but just want to keep better track of my money. Then I realised how different affiliate marketing works to a "normal" business. I mean, I don't create invoices and send them to companies.. I'm an affiliate, they just mail me a cheque when it's due.

Also, paypal. I do loads of crap with paypal - little payments in and out to random people and companies. Don't really track it very well and just record the "withdrawn amount" I put into my bank.

So two questions, do you make invoices and then close them as paid when you receive your cheques (even though you never mail the company an invoice)?

And, do you track individual payments in and out using paypal or just put the amount you withdrawn into quickbooks, again, as a paid invoice?

Agghhh now I know why I have an accountant, and I'd call him except he's on fucking holday

[OG LennyT]

Items in Paypal I don't even aknowledge until they get transferred into a bank acct. The item is entered in Quicken once the transfer happens.

[jayeff]

The correct way (and I did qualify as a chartered accountant many moons ago) would be to maintain your Paypal account as a bank so that your Quickbooks shows a complete record of your transactions there. Then, as you guessed, you issue invoices to all your sponsors, even though you don't actually send them out, because doing that lets you track who has paid and who not.

A decent set of accounts can be very useful for you to track your own progress, as well as being needed to make your accounts quick and easy to do, come tax time. From both points of view, every transaction needs to be recorded somewhere. Then at a glance, you will be able to see what you have earned, spent, what you have and owe, and what you are owed.

[pound]

Originally Posted by OG LennyT

Items in Paypal I don't even aknowledge until they get transferred into a bank acct. The item is entered in Quicken once the transfer happens.

So when you do transfer to the bank acct do you manually go through your paypal history and feed them into quickbooks? That sounds like a nightmare, some paypal payments dont even have a note explaining what they are (my fault of course).

[pound]

Originally Posted by jayeff

The correct way (and I did qualify as a chartered accountant many moons ago) would be to maintain your Paypal account as a bank so that your Quickbooks shows a complete record of your transactions there. Then, as you guessed, you issue invoices to all your sponsors, even though you don't actually send them out, because doing that lets you track who has paid and who not.

A decent set of accounts can be very useful for you to track your own progress, as well as being needed to make your accounts quick and easy to do, come tax time. From both points of view, every transaction needs to be recorded somewhere. Then at a glance, you will be able to see what you have earned, spent, what you have and owe, and what you are owed.

Thanks for that, I seem to be on the right track then. For small cheques that come in unregulary, say, sub-$1000 - would you say making a "Sales Receipt" instead of an invoice is ok?